


Gummy Bears

by sweet_witch_hella_knight



Series: All Weirdos Have Stories Too [2]
Category: That Guy with the Glasses/Channel Awesome
Genre: Backstory, Blackmail, Child Neglect, Childhood, Gen, baby girl needs snacks, baby girl will do morally questionable things for her snacks, but at least she isnt being a horrible harasser yet?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 07:52:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14911364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweet_witch_hella_knight/pseuds/sweet_witch_hella_knight
Summary: How Hyper Fangirl first learned to skulk, manipulate, and terrify her way to success...at age eight.





	Gummy Bears

**Author's Note:**

> i've been itching to write hyper fangirl as a little kid, so this is one notable example of her behavior. basically she's a victim of child neglect who had to rely on emotional manipulation and underhanded tactics to get what she wanted, without ever realizing that that's...not the right thing to do. but aside from that, she's pretty cute before she turns into an emotionally damaged stalker. 
> 
> also this takes place in like, 1999, so i apologize for lousy attempts at nineties slang. the boys aren't meant to exactly be anybody in particular, but are named after zack and jack the lego maniacs (and possibly the same people?). though zack in my head is basically maniac zack from the hocus pocus review, but i'm not promising they're the same character.

Most of the kids had a friend group of their own by second grade, but Joan sort of bounced around, not really sure of how to connect to anyone. She figured she had to be a genius about human interaction because she watched conflicts get resolved on TV for hours each day, yet somehow the other kids didn't seem to speak her language.  
  
Maybe it was because Joan's conversation starter was usually something along the lines of, "Do you like _A Pup Named Scooby Doo_??" and even if they said "yes", they gave her weird looks when she started going in depth about her favorite episodes, grabbing their hands all excited. Then they usually didn't talk to her anymore, which made her sad because she really did like talking about _A Pup Named Scooby Doo._ If they said "no" to all the shows she brought up...well, why bother trying to make friends with them?  
  
So usually during lunch, after a few minutes of trying and failing to connect to every other kid in the lunchroom this way, Joan would sit at the end of the table and eat by herself. This was fine by her, because she usually had comics or her Game Boy to keep her occupied. Today, however, she opened her lunchbox to find nothing but her Game Boy, her camera, and some napkins. Thinking back to this morning, she realized her dad had just cleaned himself up and gone straight to the slaughterhouse without as much as a "Goodbye", whereas her mom had slept in. Joan had walked to the bus stop without her lunch _or_ any money for it.  
  
This was an issue, obviously. Joan was hungry, and she got cranky when she was hungry. But what could she eat?  
  
Joan scoured the lunch table for somebody with something yummy to eat, but most of the kids had started eating their lunches. Many voices were overlapping, but she wad drawn to the one that said, "You got that Charizard card? Mad props, bro!" She focused her eyes on that corner of one table where the voice came from. Next to the boy who had commended his friend, along with several other playing cards, was a sandwich and a pack of gummy bears.  
  
The gummy bears really caught her attention, since her parents rarely let her eat something that sweet lest she get too hyperactive, even though she loved that energy boost personally. Though now she had that dang theme song from that old Disney Afternoon show stuck in her head. Everything was six degrees of separation from Disney for Joan.  
  
Avoiding the gaze of the lunch aides, Joan slipped away towards the third grade table, and slowly slid her way over next to the lunch's owner. She vaguely recognized him from her days lurking around the playground and the hallways, observing the students that seemed "cool." His name was Jack, and he usually hung out with the other third grade boys to play cool games. She'd actually tried to weasel her way in before, but they never had room, especially not for a girl, much less a spastic second grader.  
  
Nevertheless, she still liked to take candid shots of him and the other "cool" kids, so she could look at them and imagine what hanging out with them was like. Sometimes she drew pictures of herself doing stuff with them. Her teacher liked her art; he said on her report card that it was a "creative outlet for questionable fixations that may prove useful in potential psychiatric evaluations." He called her creative!  
  
This "cool" kid was so sucked into his game didn't even notice her until she piped up: "Hi there!"  
  
Jack nearly jumped when he noticed the little girl grinning up at him. "Whoa, where did you come from?"  
  
"I was sitting at the second grade table, and I heard your game, and I noticed you weren't eating your lunch. Can I have it?" Joan asked, bouncing a little.  
  
The boy glanced down at his sandwich and picked it up. "Oh, I was just gonna eat this now, after I got the game set up." Joan tried to snatch up the gummy bears, but the boy grabbed those too.  
  
Joan clasped her hands together. _"Pleeeeease?_ " she whined.  
  
Jack shifted further away from her. "No!"  
  
_"Please!!!"_ she whined louder, grabbing his arm and making puppy dog eyes.  
  
Jack yanked his arm away, causing Joan to flop onto the bench. "Get away, you baby!" He nodded to his friend. "Come on, Zack, grab the game and let's roll out." The boys carefully moved their game to the other end of the table.  
  
The failure caught her off guard, especially when she got yelled at. Usually whining got Joan whatever she wanted after a while, at least when it came to her mom. But as she watched Jack and Zack gather up their cards, she got an idea.  
  
She grabbed her lunch box and slid back to where the boy had relocated. "So!" Her voice made the boys jump a bit. "Do you like Pokemon?  
  
"Uh, yeah," Zack said. "We've been playing this since it came to the U.S."  
  
"Do you like the video game, too?" she asked, pulling out her lunchbox.  
  
"Oh yeah, totes!" Jack said. "We just can't bring it to school."  
  
"Oh, you can," Joan said, opening her lunch box, pushing some napkins aside to reveal her own Game Boy. "You just gotta be sneaky about it."  
  
The boys grinned wildly. Any gaming device smuggled into a school was like the Holy Grail to the students, even if it was covered in kitty stickers. When she turned it on and they saw the pixellated fight between Gengar and Jigglypuff, their grins got even wider.  
  
"Okay, you're cool in our books now," Jack said.  
  
"Can we play??" asked Zack with enthusiasm.  
  
Joan snapped her lunch box closed and held out her hand. "We'll do a trade-off: if you give me your sandwich, I'll let you play my game until lunchtime ends."  
  
Jack threw his sandwich at her, and Joan took a huge bite. After barely eating all day, it tasted like heaven. She opened her lunchbox again and presented the Game Boy to Jack. Zack came around behind him and watched as he ran around the greenish-gray paradise.  
  
Once Joan was done with her sandwich, she remembered the dessert that waited for her. She tapped on Jack's shoulder. "So, how 'bout those gummy bears?"  
  
To Joan's surprise, Jack snatched up the gummy bears. "Hey, I gave you the sandwich and that should be enough! I gotta keep my energy up, too!" He pointed to the screen. "Especially when I'm in the middle of a hardcore battle with a wild Vulpix! Get your own snacks, little girl!"  
  
He tore open the pack of bears and began eating those sweet little buggers. He even bit some of their body parts off before eating the whole bear, something Joan often got a kick out of doing. (Her teacher also said this would be relevant information for "potential psychiatric evaluations.") Not to mention she was jealous that he got to find a Vulpix in _her own game_ before _she_ got to.  
  
Joan felt hot with anger, and wanted to cry. But she wanted to keep low, so the teacher didn't come and see them playing on her game and take the game away. It would be nice to watch them get in trouble, but not nice for her to lose her game.  
  
Then Joan got another idea. She stood up and dejectedly told the boys, "Okay. I guess if that's what you want, I'll take the game back after lunch." They were too distracted to show any remorse, unfortunately, but that wasn't part of her plan. Snapping a secret pic of them playing with her game before slinking back to her table was.  
  
  
When the warning bell rang, Joan met back with the boys. "I hope you enjoyed those gummy bears," she said, still putting on depressed airs, hoping they would feel pity.  
  
It still didn't work, but at least Jack gave her back her game. "Here you go. Sorry, but I did need something to eat."  
  
"Oh, that's okay. You're gonna give me some snacks tomorrow, anyway," Joan said matter-of-factly. When the boys both gave her confused looks, Joan pulled out the Polaroid of the two boys from before, the Game Boy clearly visible in the shot. "If I show your teacher you were playing video games in school, she's gonna get really mad. You'll probably get detention."  
  
"But it's your game!" Zack shouted.  
  
Joan smiled wickedly. "But you can't see my name on it."  
  
"What if we tell on _you_ first?" Jack retorted.  
  
"You don't have any proof cuz I have the game and the picture." Joan hid the picture back in her lunchbox. "And if I cry hard enough, the teacher isn't gonna do anything to me!" She beamed, proud of her little scheme.  
  
Jack sighed. "Fine. I'll bring you gummy bears tomorrow."  
  
"If you bring me cookies too, then I won't show the other boys in your class that you like Game Boys with little kitten stickers on them," Joan added.  
  
"But they know I don't like cats!" Zack shouted.  
  
But Zack patted his friend on the shoulder. "Come on, Zack. Just do whatever the little narc wants us to. Maybe tomorrow we can bring in LEGOs instead."  
  
Joan watched them walk away, and she felt incredibly empowered.   
  
  
After school, Joan ran off the bus to her little house in the big neighborhood. The door was unlocked, naturally, and she opened to see her daddy sitting in his chair, reading the paper. It was good to see him home and not taking overtime. "Hi, Daddy!" she said, since he didn't acknowledge her until she walked in.  
  
"Oh, hey...darling," he said, removing the pipe from his mouth, barely glancing up from his paper. "How was school?"  
  
"It was really good!" Joan walked over to her dad's chair as she rambled. "We did division and multiplication, and in reading I got to read a whole paragraph and the teacher liked how loud I was, and in art I drew Spider-Man and the teacher said it was cool even though we were supposed to be drawing flowers, but I wasn't paying a lot of attention but my drawing came out really well anyway." She took a breath before going into her big story. "And you and Mom forgot to get me lunch but that's okay cuz I got it from another kid."  
  
Her dad looked up at her inquisitively. "Oh? How did you manage to do that?"  
  
Joan tried to climb into her dad's lap, but he blocked her with his paper. She noticed little red spots on his sweater. "Well, I took my game to school and let them play it in exchange for his sandwich, and then when he wouldn't give me his gummy bears, I threatened to show the teacher the photo I took of him playing with it!" She shook the arm of the chair a little in her excitement.  
  
For once, her dad gave her a proud smile. "You know, Joan, it's not often that I ever see myself in you. There are days I could entirely forget that you're my daughter- hell, there are a few days I do just that." Joan looked a bit confused, but kept listening hoping for good news. "But hearing you figure out blackmail all by yourself?" He patted the little girl's head. "I've never been quite so proud."  
  
He called out towards upstairs, "Hey honey, our little girl learned to manipulate people today!" They both waited, but didn't get a response. He turned back to his daughter nonchalantly saying, "She must be passed out again. She went shopping today and said she got a twelve-pack of Busch, but I only saw six in the pack when I got home."  
  
"Since she went shopping, does that mean she got dinner tonight?"  
  
Her dad chuckled. "You've been a good girl, so I'll get you a Happy Meal tonight." Joan jumped up and down shaking her little fists, excited beyond belief, until her dad clutched her hands and made her stop. "Those gummy bears really do make you hyper, don't they?"  
  
"Uh-huh!" she chirped, very much enjoying her hyper little state.  
  
"Well, you should head upstairs and do whatever. Daddy wants to read a little more before he gets himself- er, he gets _us_ dinner."  
  
Wow, he hadn't even yelled at her today when asking her to go away! Joan ran up to her room, turned on her cartoons, and started her homework. She was already daydreaming about the boys at school tomorrow giving her yummy snacks, out of fear for the power she had over them.  
  
It was a good day.


End file.
